1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a wiring connection apparatus of an electronic device, and more particularly, to a socket, occupying a small area of a printed circuit board (PCB), enabling a plurality of modules to be easily extended, and a memory system using the socket.
2. Description of the Related Art
Computer systems often require graphics of high quality, requiring that the integration density and speed of a semiconductor memory device must be increased and the size of a semiconductor memory device must be reduced. A memory module changes corresponding to the changes in the semiconductor memory device. In particular, since a greater amount of memory than the amount used in conventional technology is required for real time processing of three dimensional data, a greater number of memory module boards must be loaded on a main board.
FIG. 1 shows a first example of conventional sockets loaded on a printed circuit board (PCB) and memory modules connected to the sockets. A PCB 10 includes two conventional sockets 11 and 12 installed to be parallel with each other and two conventional memory modules 13 and 14 loaded on the sockets 11 and 12.
The memory modules 13 and 14 connected to the two conventional sockets 11 and 12 are connected to a central processing unit (not shown) in parallel through a plurality of data bus lines 15 and a plurality of signal lines 16.
FIG. 2 shows a second example of conventional sockets loaded on a PCB and memory modules connected to the sockets. The PCB 10 includes two conventional sockets 11 and 12 installed to be parallel with each other on the PCB 10 and two memory modules 23 and 24 connected to the conventional sockets 11 and 12.
The memory modules 23 and 24 connected to the sockets 11 and 12 are serially connected to the CPU (not shown) through the plurality of data bus lines 15 and the plurality of signal lines 16. In this example, the memory modules 23 and 24 are formed so that the data bus lines 15 and signal lines 16 run up along on one side and down the opposite side via a path (indicated by the solid-and-dotted lines).
FIGS. 3A and 3B are sectional views showing base sockets for loading memory modules used in a conventional PCB. FIG. 3A shows a base socket where the memory module is loaded parallel to the PCB. FIG. 3B shows a base socket where the memory module is loaded perpendicular to the PCB.
Referring to FIGS. 3A and 3B, the base sockets are attached to a PCB 34 by soldering socket fixing means 32 included in the base sockets.
The base sockets include socket bodies 30a and 30b and two socket conductors 33 for connecting the contacts of both surfaces of a memory module board 31. The two socket conductors 33 pass through the insides of the socket bodies 30a and 30b and are connected to corresponding printed circuit patterns (not shown) of the PCB 34.
Referring to FIGS. 1 through 3B, the number of memory modules used in a conventional system board is restricted by the number of sockets loaded on the system board (that is, the PCB) and installed so as to connect to the memory modules. When four sockets are loaded, the number of memory modules that can be loaded is restricted to four. The number of memory modules cannot be increased or decreased. When a user needs to use only two memory modules, the remaining two sockets are wasted.
Therefore, when a significantly large number of sockets for the memory modules are installed, the size of the PCB is large. When a small number of sockets for the memory modules are installed, it is difficult to extend memory capacity.